


Wrong

by GrimRevolution



Series: A Different Branch [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Canon, Episode: s06e13 The Wedding of River Song, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/GrimRevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he wakes up on the train, his entire soul reminds him that everything is wrong wrong wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong

Sometimes he felt himself on the beach, other times he felt himself where he is; chained up in the Tower of London.

And sometimes he felt himself being ripped apart as time itself screams in agony and took it out on him. Each second could be weeks or months or even a year which never existed (or always had existed) and he would spend hours upon hours curled up and trying to keep the weight of the chains off his skin because every _touch_ was like jagged knives ripping into him.

The clock had struck the time and he had still been alive. So the vortex ripped through him—his mind and his body—flinging him whenever and where ever but that didn’t matter anymore because now was yesterday and yesterday is tomorrow.

When Amelia shoots him in Buckingham Palace it’s like a bullet going through his body.

When he wakes up on the train, his entire soul reminds him that everything is _wrong wrong wrong_.

The gold tendrils of time were turning black and silver—dying in front of him, streaming from his hands and his feet and his eyes. He knew no one else could see it; spreading out from him like a plague until it would encompass the universe in a deathly embrace. The Doctor walked next to Amelia, he had a passing thought to the Silence in the water prisons—water conducts electricity, how could they be trapped?—before he saw _her_ while he made his way through the double doors. Technology and history mixed together into one room.

It was _disgusting_.

River turned to look at him, eye-drive on like the rest of them—he tried not to think of Rory with the gun—and she’s _beautiful_.

Water in a desert, gold and shining with the flare of sunlight at her back. Time swirled around her and he almost sobbed in relief (but kept that hidden, just like he kept everything else hidden). A golden apple, fall leaves that crunched under his feet, a spoonful of honey. He could go on for hours and hours.

Instead he just told her “honey, I’m home,” and ignored the smile on her face.

“And what sort of time do you call this?”

The rotten, dead tendrils swirling around his arms reach for hers, connecting just slightly so they bleed gold again—it’s still not enough. Madame Kovarian is there but the Doctor doesn’t care—she’s useless now. A mouse among leopards.

“The death of time. The end of time.” He wanted to tell her to stop being so melodramatic but he couldn’t stop staring at her eyebrows and wonder if they were drawn on or not because, honestly, they seemed a bit to high on her forehead. “The end of us all.”

A smile was on his face, pain receding for a bit—River being so _close_ was like a painkiller used on surgery; a minor relief. It’s probably the first smile the Doctor had in a month (because his cheeks and jaw hurt from screaming instead).

“Why couldn’t you just _die_.”

Black metal is heavy on his face but he ignores it. _If the Daleks can’t do it, what makes you think you can?_ The Doctor wants to say. “Did my best dear, I showed up. You just can’t get the psychopaths these days.” He walks past her, not looking at her anymore—she’s nothing to him now. A woman playing a game of chess against the one who created it (which could be possible, maybe he should go back and invent chess, wouldn’t that be fun?). “Love what you’ve done with the pyramids!” No, no, even not facing the technology he could still feel it.

Archeology. Yuck.

“How did you score all this?” Small talk, he still had a gob when he should be _acting_ not _talking._

“Hallucinogenic lipstick,” She wasn’t looking at him, walking past Kovarian as he moved past the collumn. And the torch. _Why did they need torches?_ “Works wonders on President Kennedy. And Cleopatra was a real pushover.” That’s when River turned to look at him and, for a moment, he wondered if she saw what he did.

Time Lord DNA, connected to the Time Vortex. “I always thought so.” This part, though—it was easy, simple.

He had to force himself to not lunge forward and pin her to the ground.

“She mentioned you.”

“What did she say?” A smile was on his face and he hadn’t noticed it. Smiling past the pain, silly Doctor. Time was tugging on him. It wanted them closer and he wondered if she could feel it—the strands of the universe coiling around them.

If she was in pain from it, she didn’t show it. “‘Put down that gun.’”

“Did you?”

“Eventually.” Her strands were gold and flourishing and he envied that.

“Oh, they're flirting.” Kovarian’s voice grated like sandstone against sandstone and he wanted to rip one of the computers off the table and bash it over her head (it took him a few seconds to calm down—the pain was making him too angry and the solution being _right_ there was making him _furious_ and _mad_ ). “Do I have to watch this?”

 _No, you can go jump off the top of this Rassilon damned pyramid because all this is your fault in the first place._ The Doctor figured he should get a medal after all this is said and done. He deserved one for what he didn’t say alone.

“It was such a basic mistake, wasn't it, Madame Kovarian?” Her eyes never left his, flickering back to just glance at the woman tied to the chair before focusing on him again. Watching. Waiting. “Take a child, raise her into a perfect psychopath, introduce her to The Doctor. Who else was I going to fall in love with?”

The Doctor wondered if she knew he would connect the time strands together the moment he could. “That's not funny, River.” Oh, that smile was gone now. Pity. “Reality is fatally compromised. Tell me you understand that.”

“Dinner?”

He almost bit his tongue to keep the cursing in his mouth. “I don't have the time, _nobody_ has the time. Because as long as I'm alive, time is dying.” _I am dying_. “Because of you, _River_.” Still her name didn’t come out as a curse—he could never curse her name, after all.

“Because I refused to kill the man I love.” Now the smile was gone from her face and underneath all the pain he still felt a tiny bit of him wince at that.

But the want to scream at her was growing in his chest—the desire for her to know that _this_ was agony, that living inside a time where everything and nothing happened at the same time was _tearing_ apart his cells and his mind. “Oh you love me, do you?” She needed to see it, _she had to see it_ —and he walked forward without a thought except to stop everything—the pain, the collapse of time, the destruction of everything. His eyes never left hers. “Oh, that's sweet of you,” The Doctor grinned coyly and heard Amelia shout in the background ( _“_ _Get him!”_ ), and the soldiers moved to obey. “Isn't that sweet? _Come here you_.” They grabbed him by his upper arms, forcing him back and he gritted his teeth, smothering the scream of agony that had started up in his throat.

 _He had been so close these daft, stupid apes!_ Time reached and wailed, trying to pull them closer and closer.

“I'm not a fool, sweetie. I know what happens if we touch.” She looked at him with those knowing, sad eyes but they were knowing and sad for an entirely different reason even as he shrugged off the soldiers and gave them a smile.

Then he was lunging forward, gripping her by the wrist in an iron clad grip that would’ve broken a normal human’s arm—he didn’t care about roughness anymore, and he watched the time streams connecting, one by one.

It was _glorious_.

The room erupted into chaos, River and Amy shouting, the scientists yelling.

But all he could see were the silver and black time energy connecting with the gold and _healing_. “I'm sorry, River. It's the only way.” Rule one; the Doctor lies.

He wasn’t sorry at all.

Time turned its attention away from him, spinning and swirling as it healed. Everything was fixing himself and then there was _sand_ and _water_ and her in the _spacesuit_ —

It all tore apart again and he relished the few seconds where the pain was gone. The tendrils around him were golden, still, the color slowly bleeding out of them while guards latched his arms behind his back. They were disconnected from the ones around River, but he relished the moment of freedom.

“Cuff him,” River snapped, rubbing her wrist as she walked away.

Hiding the pain in her arm, but he was watching silver and black swirl around him, ready to consume him again. _Not again, not again—_ “Why do you always _have_ handcuffs?” The last of his hope was ripped away as the metal clicked around his wrists. The Doctor was glad they weren’t as heavy as the chains. “It's the only way, River. We're the opposite poles of the disruption. If we touch, we short out the differential.” Time energy turned into spike, the last of the gold fading away with each passing _word_. “ _Time_ can begin again.”

“And I'll be by a lakeside, killing you.”

He was a _Time Lord_. It wasn’t just a title, it wasn’t just a _species_. “And time won't fall apart. The clocks will tick. Reality will continue. There isn't another way.”

“I didn't say there was, Sweetie.” She was resigned. So, so resigned.

Time struck, furious and full of hate at the one thing standing in its way. The Doctor lurched as it ripped through his body, closing his eyes and biting down on his lip so hard copper pooled in his mouth. The red-orange blood trickled down his chin, jabbing in needles with each skin cell it pushed down upon. It ripped through memories and thoughts, tearing away it all as his body jerked. Handcuffs felt like blades, slicing through his skin, the very clothes he wore made his body ache.

He took a gasping breath once the worst of it had passed, opening his eyes and looking at the floor while he swayed.

Amy reached out to steady him but he flinched away, out of her touch and then looked up at River Song.

She stared at him like he was a mystery to be solved. “There are so many theories about you and I, you know.”

“Idle gossip.” The Doctor knew what was going on—he could see it in front of his face. And that filter was gone now—most of it, at least.

River was coming closer and oh, _Rassilon_ , the pain of just one of her slaps would be worth the energy connecting for just another second. “Archaeology.”

He snorted and felt the blood drip down into the sand. It would be gone, anyway; he didn’t bother to kick it away like he would have done in normal conditions. “Same thing.”

“Am I the woman who marries you, or the woman who murders you.”

 _You’re the one who tortured me,_ he wanted to scream at her, but no. He still didn’t; hiding everything behind a mask of lies once more. “Oh... I don't want to _marry_ you.”

“I don't want to murder you.”

She was so close he could _kiss_ her. “Well, this is no fun at all.”

“It isn't, is it?”

Amy, however, was the one who distracted them and he could’ve thrown something at her, too. “Doctor. What's that?”

 _Water, Amy Pond,_ his mind came up with immediately but the Doctor let it drift away. Water conducted electricity. “The pyramid above us. How many Silence have you got trapped inside it?”

“None. They're not trapped. They never have been. They've been waiting.” Stupid, ignorant _ape_ of course he knew that! He asked how _many_ —quite idiotic to go against something and _not_ know their numbers. “For this, Doctor. For you.”

Well, they could bloody well kill him, the Doctor figured. Electricity wouldn’t be a bad way to go, honestly.

Rory Williams crashed through the doors. “They're out! All of them!” He slammed the wooden beam down against it to hold it in place. “No one gets in here,” the Roman came back to stand with the other soldiers and the Doctor watched, right behind them, edging slowly forward. “Ma’am, my men out there should be able to lock us down.”

“And you're wearing eye-drives based on mine, I think.” Kovarian looked ever so smug and the computer was looking ever so _nice_. “Whoops.”

The Doctor turned around—hundreds of people wearing those things. Hundreds of people facing the Silence, surrounded by water, by _metal_. “What do you mean?”

One of the scientists from earlier started to scream, hands plastered over her eye—no, the eye-drive. A buzzing was coming from it, burning through her. Time strands connected to her body were falling apart, breaking. “Help her, _help her_ —” Stupid, metal _handcuffs_. The strands were sliced though, even as Amelia reached her, even as the woman kept screaming.

Dead. He didn’t need to hear the redhead say it because he knew.

It hit him, then. Sparking up through his mind, adding with the agony of the time energy and he almost keeled over, screaming. “Eye-drives off, now!” The Doctor managed and felt nails against his skin, peeling off the black metal. It came off and he blinked his eyes open, vision swimming just as Amelia screeched.

River went to her and the Doctor turned to the speaking Kovarian; her smile was that of a lioness. He didn’t want to tell her the truth as madness crept upon him.

“The Silence would never allow an advantage without taking one themselves. The effects will vary from person to person.” She took great pleasure in saying it. Such great pleasure and he almost spat on her—it really was getting harder and harder to keep control of himself and he hated his weakness just as he hated his cruelty and the pain. “Either death. Or debilitating _agony_. But they will take you all. One by one.”

He felt his lips curl up in a smirk and she blinked. Time sparked, telling him the future and the past.

Kovarian would die here, in this time line by the very creatures she thought she controlled. The Silence had their prey. They wouldn’t need her any more.

The sound of her begging was music to his pain, muddled ears and he turned to River and Amelia, hands behind his back because, _oops_ ; he couldn’t do anything. “We could stop this right now, you and I.” River wasn’t budging so he looked at her mother instead, _pleading_ because the agony ripping through his system was nothing, _nothing_ , compared to the dying screams of those above him. “Amy, _tell her_.”

“We've been working on something. Just let us show you.” Amelia said instead and he gritted his teeth.

 _Humans._ “No point. There's nothing you can do. _My time is up_.”

“We're doing this for you!” She spat out.

He _snarled_ and she flinched back just a bit. The dark and light were twisting around him and it was spreading—spreading through the universe and nothing would be able to stop it. “And people are dying for me. I won't _thank you_ for that, _Amelia Pond_.”

“Just let us show you,” River looked as if the only thing stopping her from grabbing him and dragging him along was the fact that time would begin again and he pursed his lips even as her mother begged him with a _please_.

He looked between them and at the door as another wave of agony hit… then the Doctor bowed his head. Space was dying. The solar system was stilling with every second but what choice did he have?

“Okay,” Amelia breathed and then turned to address her husband—which she still hadn’t recognized, come on Amelia, _open your eyes._ “Captain Williams, how long do we have?”

“A couple of minutes.” The blond didn’t look too sure as the doors banged, though.

“That's enough.” River turned back to the Doctor. “We're going to the receptor room right at the top of the pyramid. I hope you're ready for a climb.”

He nodded in acceptance and followed her, biting back a groan when each footstep felt like he was walking on hot coals and his bones knocked together with the forces of sledge hammers. It took all his will power to just keep standing, but he could lean against the wall as they went up the stairs.

At some point, Amelia turned back and he grinned slightly, knowing she had finally figured it out.

They worked their way upward, a side area where there were no Silence (not yet at least). He felt Kovarian dying below but couldn’t bring himself to care. A cool, desert breeze greeted them at the top and the Doctor relaxed in it for a moment and focused on the technology in the middle. “What's this?” The panels, the machinery. “Oh, it's a timey-wimey distress beacon. Who built this?”

“I'm a child of the TARDIS.” She sounded proud and he would be proud _of her_ in any normal circumstances. “I understand the physics.”

This wasn’t normal circumstances. “But that's all you've got is a _distress beacon_?” He missed being able to motion with his hands. The Doctor squashed the urge to kick the metal in front of him.

“I've been sending out a message. A distress call. Outside the bubble of our time. The universe is still turning and I've sent a message everywhere.” She may not see it, but he knew, right then, that she could feel it and he straightened a bit, listening fully. “To the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. ‘The Doctor is dying. Please, please help.’”

“River!” Rassilon, she still didn’t _get_ it. “River! This is ridiculous!” It’s a fixed point, it will always be a fixed point. _He_ needed to _die_ on that beach the same way Jack was never going to _die_ , or that Gallifrey will always be _gone_. “That would mean nothing to anyone. It's insane. Worse, it's stupid!” The Doctor swallowed and shook his head slightly before meeting her eyes. “You _embarrass_ me.”

Her face fell, but he didn’t know why because it had been falling long before he had said that last part, that last section.

Amelia and her Rory came up the stairs, then, hands clasped tight, never to let go. “We barricaded the door. We've got a few minutes. Just tell him.” His eyes flickered between the two of them. “Just tell him, River!”

“Those reports of the sun spots and the solar flares. They're wrong. There aren't any. It's not the sun.” Her voice was breathless, but strong and he listened. “It's you. The sky is full of a million million voices, saying, ‘Yes of course. We'll help.’”

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something when he was interrupted again, but he let her continue.

“You've touched so many _lives_ , saved so many _people_.”Something clenched between his hearts that had nothing to do with the time energy ripping him apart and his eyes fell down, staring anywhere but into her piercing gaze. “Did you think when your time came you'd really have to do more than just ask?” The Doctor looked at Amelia, and she wore that same, begging expression on her face so he looked back at River, taking in her wetness on her eyelashes, the redness in her eyes. “You've decided that the universe is better off without you. But the universe doesn't _agree_.”

“River, no one can help me.” He managed to grind out while Saturn’s time faltered and skipped before it shattered and he felt every bit of it deep in his bones as the energy howled and struck him harder. “A fixed point has been _altered_. Time is _disintegrating_.”

“ _I can't let you die—_ ” River was so close to tears, now; he saw them in the clench of her jaw and the looseness around her eyes.

 _Please, please, please—_ “But I _have_ to die!”

“Shut up!” She screamed at him and he did, hanging his head slightly and almost turning away from her. “I can't let you die without knowing you are loved. By so many and so much.” The blond woman swallowed. “And by no one more than me.”

“River, you and I, we know what this _means_.” The harshness was gone from his voice and he _begged_. “We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions and billions will _suffer_ and _die_.”

Those tears were so close to rolling down her cheeks and watching all of it happen made him forget about the energy striking him, beating him. “I'll suffer if I have to kill you.”

“More than everything _living thing_ in the universe?!” He snapped in disbelief but paused, staring at her at the sudden clearness on her face. The eyes looking at him, mouth opened slightly.

“Yes.”

 _Damn it, damn it, **damn it**_.

“I am a _Time Lord_ ,” He snarled at them all at last, startling them all into silence. “I am physically connected to time, I am the _only one left_ who is connect to time. It is my _duty_ to protect it,” this time River opened her mouth to say something but he plowed on, not giving her a chance because now it was _his_ turn. “And I have _failed_ and am being punished for it every _second_.” He took a shuddering breath and couldn’t contain the tremor as Uranus was lost. “It is eating up the universe right now and I can do nothing to stop all the lives that are being taken, all the lines that are snapping.”

The tears spilled now, down her cheeks as realization hit her in full force—he can see it in her eyes.

“I can feel each and every one of them—all those that never where, that always are, that should never be. Births and deaths in the wrong place, the ones that were never meant to happen, people who should have never met—” He choked and stumbled a bit, but still flinched away from Amelia as she reached for him. “It _burns_ River! Melody Pond—” He turned to Amelia and Rory, spitting out the words, now. “Your daughter. I hope you're both _proud_!” The Time Lord couldn’t look at any of them anymore and instead faced the night sky, focusing on Neptune as it stilled in the sky. In the universe.

The black and silver energy snapped at him like whips and he grunted, arching his back slightly as the pain burned faster, ripped deeper.

“I'm not sure I completely understand.” Rory was saying behind him.

Amelia’s eyes burned into his back. “Ah, we got married and had a kid and that's her.”

“Okay.” Good old Rory; accepting Rory.

The Doctor licked his lips.“Amy, uncuff me now.” For the first time that night, she followed his instructions, unleashing the metal that had been cutting into his wrists—one look at them showed that no, they hadn’t. He straightened his jacket and stared out into the dark, forcing down the tremors before he turned. “Okay, I need a strip of cloth about a foot long. Anything will do.” Amy and Rory glanced at each other so he reached up for the bowtie around his neck and undid it. “Never mind. River, take one end of this, wrap it around your hand, and hold it out to me.”

She approached him, slowly and cautiously. He really couldn’t blame her for that. “What am I doing?”

“As you're told.” The Doctor wrapped his end around his fingers, ignoring the feeling of his bones grinding while she did the same. “Now. In the middle of a combat zone so we'll have to do the quick version.” There was only a few inches of space between them now, their colors were connecting again, Time was singing in anticipation. “Captain Williams, say, ‘I consent and gladly give.’”

Rory blinked and frowned. “To what?”

“Just say it!” The Doctor snapped, impatience rising again until he met Amelia’s unamused gaze and added on a “ _please_.”

“I consent and gladly give.” 

His gaze turned to the redhead. “I need you to say it too,” He paused and swallowed as another tremor racked his body. “Mother-of-the-bride.”

She paused for only a brief moment. “I consent and gladly give.”

“Now, River.” Finally he turned his gaze to the woman across from him and found her eyes already there, waiting. “I'm about to whisper something in your ear and you have to remember it very very carefully and tell _no one_ what I said _._ ” He knew she was lying when she gave that little nod—there would be two people that she’d spill the secret to but right now that didn’t matter because the Universe was collapsing and he needed her to do what she needed to do, just as he needed to do what he needed to do.

Pulling back, he glanced at Amelia in the corner of his eye and gave his new spouse a small smile and his new mother-in-law another lie. “I just told you my name. Now. There you go, River Song. Melody Pond.” He could see the realization and awe on her face and, in any normal situation, he would’ve been so proud of himself. But pain burned still. “You're the woman who married me. And wife, I have a request.” His voice let loose a small sob before he could swallow it and he plastered the mask back in place. But her eyes were on him, now; he knew she could see it all. “This world is dying and it's my fault. And I can't bear it another day.” The Doctor looked into her eyes, shivering slightly as rotten time energy spread out into space. “Please,” he begged softly. “Help me.” _Heal me. Stop this._ “There isn't another way.”

Her face was full of so much understanding now—but no pity. Never pity. He was proud of that, too. “Then you may kiss the bride.” River Song stepped forward, the corners of her mouth inching up in a smile as she spoke.

“I'll make it a good one.” He promised—and he did mean it, this time.

“You better.”

Their lips came together and his eyes fluttered shut, tasting her with his nose against her cheek before he moved. A golden glow formed around them—the time energy becoming visible as they touched. The clocks started ticking, but still he kissed her, clutching her waist before reaching for her hair and fisting his hands in it, pulling her to him.

She took that queue to touch him, wrapping her own arms around his neck and moaned out a sound that made his knees weak.

In a flash, they were on the beach, sunlight blazing down on them, separated while the crackle of weapons filled the air.

And they were still kissing, holding onto each other—then they weren’t, and the fixed point had passed leaving everything to start again. 


End file.
